A recent meta-analysis showed that long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics were not superior to oral antipsychotics for preventing relapse in patients with schizophrenia. We therefore designed a treatment strategy combining risperidone LAI and COMPASS (COMprehensive Psycho-educational Approach and Scheme Set), an original psychoeducational program supporting treatment with risperidone LAI a...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and side effects of zuclopenthixol acetate compared with haloperidol in the management of the acutely disturbed schizophrenic patient. Suitable subjects diagnosed as having schizophreniform disorder or acute exacerbation of schizophrenia admitted to the psychiatric wards Hospital Kuala Lumpur were randomised to receive either zuclopenthixol ace...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program on psychiatric symptoms, global functioning, life satisfaction, and recovery-promoting relationships among individuals with mental illness. METHODS Participants were patients at the Suwon Mental Health Center. Thirty-two patients were part of the ACT program and 32 patients matched fo...

BACKGROUND Persistent methamphetamine (METH) psychosis is a psychotic state beyond 1-month after abstinence, for which there is no effective treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in persistent METH psychosis patients hospitalized at Shahid Beheshti Hospital, Kerman, Iran, from 6 September 2012 until 6 September 2013, who were not remitted a...

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the factor structure of Bech's version of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), translated into Portuguese. The BPRS was administered to a heterogeneous group of psychiatric inpatients (N = 98) and outpatients (N = 62) in a University Hospital. Each patient was evaluated from one to eight times. The interval between consecutive interviews ...

The aim of the present study was to assess the efficacy and safety of olanzapine in the treatment of schizophrenic patients. 27 patients were randomly assigned to treatment with olanzapine or haloperidol over 12 weeks. The primary efficacy measure was the mean change from baseline to endpoint in total scores on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and assessing treatment emergent adverse e...

Usefulness of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) in distinguishing positive and negative subtypes of schizophrenia is presented. Ninety five schizophrenic patients were assessed on BPRS. Significant differences emerged between positive and negative subtypes of schizophrenia on items like emotional withdrawal, guilt feelings, tension, hallucinatory behaviour, motor retardation, blunted af...

BACKGROUND In clinical practice patients with unipolar depression present with a variety of symptom clusters that may combine together in many different ways. However, only few factor analytic studies used general psychopathology scales to investigate the symptom structure of unipolar depression. METHODS The study included 163 consecutive inpatients with an ICD-10 diagnosis of depressive diso...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between aggression in the first 24 hours after admission and severity of psychopathology in psychiatric inpatients. METHODS This cross-sectional study included psychiatric patients admitted to Hospital Universitário de Santa Maria, in Santa Maria, southern Brazil, from August 2012 to January 2013. At their arrival at the hospital, patients were intervi...

Obermeier and colleagues address an at-first glance trivial issue, which, however, has major implications on the analysis and interpretation of clinical trials: The scaling of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). The original version of the scale uses a 1–7 rating system that creates major problems of interpretation when it comes to the calculation of responder rates based on perce...